Thoughts on michael parenti?

the quote OP posted does. This is just my favourite quote from him

HAHA NICE GMIL BRO UPBOATED(don't forget to buy GMIL merchandise)

...

Shirt should read

complete fucking nonsense

...

Having a plan is nonsense?

real communism has no plan just workers owning the means of production

Having a rigid, prefigurative structure that you try to mold reality to is. Having ideas or preferences on how a potential socialist society would operate isn't.

What's your problem with this? He's trying to make money under capitalism and he doesn't even promote the commodities he sells that much.
Are you upset he doesn't donate to your little bourgeois leftist sect, buy YOUR stupid commodities (including "socialism", which is another ideology in the supermarket for you) and brainwash le dumb proles?

Oh aye, and how should this ownership be organised? (planned)

Who said anything about molding reality? Who said anything about rigid? You look at how things actually are, you make a plan and you carry it out. Not just "LMAO the revolution will just happen bro"

EDUCATE (plan education) AGITATE (plan agitation) ORGANISE (Plan)

What's the difference between leftcoms and the USSR? Nothing, neither abolished commodity production.

Ahahaha exist outside of the Internet plz m8

Love his JFK conspiracy theories

Leftcucks on suicide watch
Stop making your shitty comics GMIL you fucking faggot

I used to love him when I was a tankie. He's too edgy to be a significant voice. I agree with this quote but 20th century socialism was a meme and we need to move on. No more clinging to Lenin/Stalin/Honecker let's move on.

That's a pretty ultra-leftist thing to say tbh

Good for some history but otherwise a terrible theorist, what with the complaints about "corporate capitalism" and saying the eastern block countries were communist. More of a propagandist.

History and present day analysis should be the only things that inform your theory. That's what makes it a scientific theory rather than a quack theory.

...

Stupid tautology.

not really most communist parties around the world don't wave around stalin banners save for a few ML groups in the third world and the CPGB-ML

fuck forgot to take off shitposting flag

what else should inform your theory besides history and the present state of things?

Parenti is the epitome of the theoretically practical Marxist who begins with actual experience as opposed to abstract bullshit like leftcoms do. Parenti grasps the real meaning of 'the real movement', he really sees communism as a dialectic with the present state of things, the real possibility today as opposed to the ideal possibility of a mere 'if,then' like leftcom idealists dream of.

I've never heard Parenti call for a return to these garbage dumps of ideology. What he does do is not shy away from defending what should and must be defended, what we should not be ashamed of in the Left's failed experiments—they did have successes which proved parts of socialist theoretical claims. Yes, they were also very shitty states and places to live, but we must also look at the concrete reality and understand why these places were as they were.

The problem with leftcoms and MLs alike is this: abstract idealism. For all he claims of thinking concretely, these groups are completely abstract and ahistorical in their theory, and thus we find that given that there theory has no history they likewise have no historical actual practice that can connect to a world different from their ideas.

My point is that your comment is useless. I can get better takes from more informed theorists than Parenti, who as I said seems hardly more than a good propagandist

It isn't useless. (you have asserted without evidence, so ill do the same, we can go back and forth like this) Who are you saying is more informed? Are you saying he is uninformed? Or are you just buttmad he called out people who worship abstract theories of instead of the concrete and real?

good post

Whatever. The reason your post was tautological is because every communist with a brain knows this, but Parenti misuses terms and confuses them as I mentioned in my first post. Why are you even replying?

Good post.

Isnt that bc they've turned socdems tho?

Good post indeed. Please recommend a Parenti book.

no it's just that using stalin's image doesn't make much sense and that it would make more sense to replace his image with a more local notable socialist

Absolutely based

If you're suggesting communists must not engage in capitalism you're a fucking lifestylist who's understanding of socialism is identical to the reactionaries who say we can't use iPhones

What a shitty quote, he sounds like an utopian retard, you can't plan an entire society before a revolution

I'm not suggesting that I'm simply suggesting that you shouldn't try to whore out your art and that's kinda the whole point of merchandising

Why the fuck not, seems to me the entire revolution should be planning production and distribution then carrying this out

Fun times when it comes to historical analysis, full of shit when it comes to worker cooperatives.

Any country would be falling apart after a revolution, you can plan a general structure but you will have to improvise sooner or later

He raises some good points and I think he has some good work to draw from. I don't agree with absolutely everything he says, but I think he has a point when he talks about the socialist experiments of the 20th century being falsely maligned, especially by people on the Left.

which is why your plan needs to be as robust as possible and flexible to changing or unforeseen material conditions. I.e decentralised and directly democratic, so the proletariat can answer their own demands.

imagine being that kind of person who would wear one of those shirts in public

damn that's pretty fuckin fedora right there

Jesus christ, I threw up in my mouth a little.

You make him sound like a communisation theorist.

This is precisely why I dislike Parenti and other ML commentators though. They spend so much time with their heads turned backwards, endlessly trying to defend the USSR and other historical movements. Parenti has spent so much of his life trying to unto decades of American anti-communism and while he has a following there is no organization or power behind it, and it cannot be a force for change.

If Parenti came out and demanded a return to the Leninist party model, or to reclaim the CPUSA or something, I would probably have more respect for him. As it is now he's just like many other Marxists who are heavy on history but light on praxis. The susceptibility of state socialism to revisionism and its failure to truly challenge capitalism is why people turn away from ML towards communization, communalism, and other leftcom/anarchist ideas. When Parenti stops talking about the USSR or American imperialism he basically turns into a social democrat, palling around with Bernie Sanders and suggesting that more public services are the end all be all in American political organization.

I'd buy the mug tbh.

go back to r/ultraleft

Worthless. He exists to tell us that everything wrong in the world is the fault of the western bourgeoisie, effectively personalising capital and minimising as much as possible on the hand of the so-called "actually existing socialism" states. A vindicator of Stalinism, a much less insane but still insane Grover Furr if Grover Furr had a way with words.

You can tell it works; plenty of even anarchist flags ready to either be wholly unaware of or ignore all the apologetics he's done for Stalinist activity against anarchists, lest we forget all non-ideologically affiliated workers' movements trampled under the boot of Stalinism and its inspirations. This is the same guy who said Julius Caesar was a great “hero of the people”, when Caesarism was the Bonapartism of the ancient world (unsurprising he'd like it; Stalinism is red Bonapartism).

Michael "Milosevic did nothing wrong" Parenti.

Did he?

That is not his position at all, he merely states that the break up of Yugoslavia and ensuing chaos was heavily influenced and agitated by the west, it was their meddling that caused the rise of ultranationalism in the region, which is true.

You people I swear, he isn't a Leninist, he calls himself a democratic socialist, he just tells the truth about history, which sometimes means throwing Stalin a bone. Only people hopped up on pure ideology refuse to accept the merits of people they don't agree with

...

*leftcom throws the quote about communism being the real movement that abolishes blablabla*

ownership shouldn't be organized that's the point of communism you stupid fuck

There is literally nothing wrong with organisation when it is done by the proletariat themselves. Is this bait?

communism is when the WORKERS own the means of productions

anarchists usually work with bourgeois liberals and bourgeois peasants

is somehow not compatible with

Not really on topic is it. Nonetheless, a united front is completely necessary and only a literal autist thinks otherwise. Particularly in this day and age when the trade unions are dead and being a communist at this point is either being a fanboy for various miniscule struggles around the world or jerking off into the pages of history. The idea of a pure communist party, particularly in the mold of other communist parties from history, rising up and sweeping the majority of the workforce is laughable. I can tell you have never been to an actual "communist party" meeting. Otherwise you would understand

so you admit you don't advocate for anarchism you just advocate for class collaboration you retarded fascist

1) I do advocate for "Anarchism" , I'm just not an ideologically arrogant autist and I understand that there are different interpretations of socialism and that most of the population is liberals who it is impossible to work without. Statelessness is not my main goal, my main goal is the abolition of private property, which I believe is only possible without a state. I subscribe neither to instant abolition or seizure, but a prefigurative superceding.

I advocate for the creation and gradual expansion of a co-operative network which will buy new co-operatives, buy means of production within those co-operatives outright, provide community survival programs, fund agitation, and improve the material conditions for the workers within in it, as well as providing leftist education etc etc etc in the beggining, this network will expand until it has superceded the state, to QUOTE MARX "We shall probably succeed easier in buying the estates of the landlords." or Lenin "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." or to quote Proudhon, "Property is theft, property is liberty, property is impossible"
I have come to this position based on my analysis of the current state of the left in the present material conditions. I don't reject violent expropriation, I just don't think it is currently anywhere near being feasible.

2) When it comes to supporting or not historical united fronts, I can clearly see why those in Spain did it, or China. I can also see how the break up of the United Front was damaging, in for example Italy or Germany. The fact that in Catalonia the living conditions of the workers were greatly increased means I'm not really hung up on how stateless it was. Communism will be formed in the shall of the old state until that state has no reason to exists because the communists have outgrown it.

3) you didn't answer any of the other points I made, suddenly went quiet on those ones.

bump

He’s right we need more utopianism.